Aziz Art April 2017

AZIZ ART April 2017

Ai Weiwei

Reza Khodadadi

SHADIA AND RAJA ALEM

Competition

JMV spring group show 2017

http://www.aziz-anzabi.com

Director: Aziz Anzabi Editor : Nafiseh Yaghoubi Translator : Asra Yaghoubi Research: Zohreh Nazari

1-Shadia and Raja Alem 3- Competition 4- Ai Weiwei 18- Competition 19-Reza Khodadadi 24-JVM Spring group show 2017

Shadia and Raja Alem

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Shadia and Raja Alem The sisters Shadia and Raja Alem represent one of Saudi Arabia’s only collaborative double acts. Born in Makkah they divide their time between Jeddah and Paris. The inimitable and spiritual bond between the two has allowed them to work together to startling effect. Of the two, Shadia is the visual artist. She graduated with a BA in Art & English Literature from King AbdulAziz Universty and since 1985 has participated in group and solo exhibitions in Saudi Arabia as well as Egypt, Morocco, Germany, Korea and Paris. Raja is the writer. Her work includes novels, plays and numerous collaborations with artists through which she has become one of the best-known

writers in the Arab world. Between them they have been involved in many projects that seek to encourage creativity amongst the youth and women of Saudi Arabia. In this and all their work they’re inspired by female predecessors Safia bin Zagir and Mona Mosaly who exhibited in Jeddah during the 1960s. EXHIBITED IN 2014 - FOTOFEST 2014 BIENNIAL, HOUSTON 2010 - EDGE OF ARABIA ISTANBUL: TRANSITION 2010 - EDGE OF ARABIA BERLIN: GREY BORDERS / GREY FRONTIERS 2009 - EDGE OF ARABIA: 53RD VENICE BIENNALE 2008 - EDGE OF ARABIA LONDON

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Ai Weiwei

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Ai Weiwei born 28 August 1957 in Beijing is a Chinese Contemporary artist and activist. His father's original surname was written Jiang Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics. As a political activist, he has been highly and openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He has investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of so-called "tofu-dreg schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.In 2011, following his arrest at Beijing Capital International Airport on 3 April, he was held for 81 days without any official charges being filed; officials alluded to their allegations of "economic crimes". Early life and work Ai's father was the Chinese poet Ai Qing, who was denounced during the Anti-Rightist Movement. In 1958, the family was sent to a

labour camp in Beidahuang, Heilongjiang, when Ai was one year old. They were subsequently exiled to Shihezi, Xinjiang in 1961, where they lived for 16 years. Upon Mao Zedong's death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, the family returned to Beijing in 1976. In 1978, Ai enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy and studied animation. In 1978, he was one of the founders of the early avant garde art group the "Stars", together with Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Zhong Acheng and Qu Leilei. The group disbanded in 1983, yet Ai participated in regular Stars group shows, The Stars: Ten Years, 1989 (Hanart Gallery, Hong Kong and Taipei), and a retrospective exhibition in Beijing in 2007: Origin Point (Today Art Museum, Beijing) Time in the U.S. From 1981 to 1993, he lived in the United States. For the first few years, Ai lived in Philadelphia and San Francisco, he studied English at the University of Pennsylvania and Berkeley.Later, he moved to New York City.

He studied briefly at Parsons School of Design.Ai attended the Art Students League of New York from 1983 to 1986, where he studied with Bruce Dorfman, Knox Martin and Richard Pousette-Dart. He later dropped out of school, and made a living out of drawing street portraits and working odd jobs. During this period, he gained exposure to the works of Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns, and began creating conceptual art by altering readymade objects. Ai befriended beat poet Allen Ginsberg while living in New York, following a chance meeting at a poetry reading where Ginsberg read out several poems about China. Ginsberg had travelled to China and met with Ai's father, the noted poet Ai Qing, and consequently Ginsberg and Ai became friends. When he was living in the East Village (from 1983 to 1993), Ai carried a camera with him all the time and would take pictures of his surroundings wherever he was. The resulting collection of photos were later selected and is now known as the New York

Photographs. At the same time, Ai became fascinated by blackjack card games and frequented Atlantic City casinos. He is still regarded in gambling circles as a top tier professional blackjack player according to an article published on blackjackchamp.com Returning from the U.S. to China In 1993, Ai returned to China after his father became ill. He helped establish the experimental artists' Beijing East Village and co-published a series of three books about this new generation of artists with Chinese curator Feng Boyi: Black Cover Book (1994), White Cover Book (1995), and Gray Cover Book (1997). In 1999, Ai moved to Caochangdi, in the northeast of Beijing, and built a studio house – his first architectural project. Due to his interest in architecture, he founded the architecture studio FAKE Design, in 2003.In 2000, he co-curated the art exhibition Fuck Off with curator Feng Boyi in Shanghai, China. Ai is married to artist Lu Qing,and has a son from an extramarital relationship

Visual arts Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995) Map of China (2008): A sculpture resembling a park bench or tree trunk, but its cross-section is a map of China. It is four metres long and weighs 635 kilograms. It is made from wood salvaged from Qing Dynasty temples. Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads: Sculpture inspired by inspired by the water clock-fountain at the Old Summer Palace. Table with two legs on the wall (2008) Straight (2008-2012) Sunflower Seeds (2010): Opening in October 2010 at the Tate Museum in London, Ai displayed 100 million handmade and painted porcelain sunflower seeds. These seeds weight about 150 tons and were made over a span of two and a half years by 1,600 Jingdezhen artisans. This city made porcelain for the government for over one thousand years. The artisans produced the sunflower seeds in the traditional method that the city is known for, in which a thirty step procedure is employed. The sculpture relates back to

Chairman Mao's rule and the Chinese Communist Party. The combination of all the seeds represent that together, the people of China can stand up and overthrow the Chinese Communist Party. Along with this, the seeds represent China's growing mass production stemming from the consumerist culture in the west. The sculpture directly challenges the “Made in China” mantra that China is known for, considering the labor-intensive and traditional method of creating the work. Surveillance Camera (2010) Coca Cola Vase (2014) Grapes (2014) Free-speech Puzzle (2014) Ai's visual art includes sculptural installations, woodworking, video and photography. "Ai Weiwei: According to What," adapted and expanded by the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden from a 2009 exhibition at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum, was Ai's first North American museum retrospective. It opened at the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C. in 2013, and subsequently traveled to the Brooklyn Museum, New York,and two other venues.

More recent works address his investigation into the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake and responses to the Chinese government's detention and surveillance of him. Architecture Jinhua Park In 2002, he was the curator of the project Jinhua Architecture Park. Tsai Residence In 2006, Ai and HHF Architects designed a private residence in upstate New York. According to the New York Times, the Tsai Residence is divided into four modules and the details are "extraordinarily refined".[ In 2009, the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design selected the home for its International Architecture Awards, one of the world's most prestigious global awards for new architecture, landscape architecture, interiors and urban planning. In 2010, Wallpaper magazine nominated the residence for its Wallpaper Design Awards category: Best New Private House.A detached guesthouse, also designed by Ai and HHF Architects,

was completed after the main house and, according to New York Magazine, looks like a "floating boomerang of rusty Cor-Ten steel. Ordos 100 In 2008, Ai curated the architecture project Ordos 100 in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. He invited 100 architects from 29 countries to participate in this project Beijing National Stadium Ai was commissioned as the artistic consultant for design, collaborating with the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics, also known as the "Bird's Nest."Although ignored by the Chinese media, he had voiced his anti-Olympics views. He later distanced himself from the project, saying, "I've already forgotten about it. I turn down all the demands to have photographs with it," saying it is part of a "pretend smile" of bad taste. In August 2007, he also accused those choreographing the Olympic opening ceremony, including Steven Spielberg and Zhang Yimou, of failing to live up to their responsibility as artists.

Ai said "It's disgusting. I don't like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgment."In February 2008, Spielberg withdrew from his role as advisor to the 2008 Summer Olympics.When asked why he participated in the designing of the Bird's Nest in the first place, Ai replied "I did it because I love design." Serpentine Pavilion In summer 2012, Ai teamed again with Herzog & de Meuron on a "would-be archaeological site a game of make-believe and fleeting memory" as the year's temporary Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London's Kensington Gardens. Music On 24 October 2012, Ai went live with a cover of Gangnam Style, the famous K-pop phenomenon by South Korean rapper PSY, through the posting of a four-minute long parody video on YouTube. The video was an attempt to criticize the Chinese government's attempt to silence his activism and was quickly blocked by national authorities. On 22 May 2013, Ai debuted his first single Dumbass over the

internet, with a music video shot by cinematographer Christopher Doyle. The video was a reconstruction of Ai's experience in prison, during his 81-day detention, and dives in and out of the prison's reality and the guarding soldiers' fantasies.He later released a second single, Laoma Tihua, on 20 June 2013 along with a video on his experience of state surveillance, with footage compiled from his studio's documentaries. On 22 June 2013, the two-year anniversary of Ai's release, he released his first music album The Divine Comedy.Later in August, he released a third music video for the song Chaoyang Park, also included in the album. Other engagements Ai is the Artistic Director of China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW), which he co-founded in 1997. This contemporary art archive and experimental gallery in Beijing concentrates on experimental art from the People's Republic of China, initiates and facilitates exhibitions and other forms of introductions inside and outside China. The building which houses it was designed by Ai in 2000.

On 15 March 2010, Ai took part in Digital Activism in China, a discussion hosted by The Paley Media Center in New York with Jack Dorsey and Richard MacManus. Also in 2010 he served as jury member for Future Generation Art Prize, Kiev, Ukraine; contributed design for Comme de Garcons Aoyama Store, Tokyo, Japan; and participated in a talk with Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller at the International Culture festival Litcologne in Cologne, Germany. In 2011, Ai sat on the jury of an international initiative to find a universal Logo for Human Rights. The winning design, combining the silhouette of a hand with that of a bird, was chosen from more than 15,300 suggestions from over 190 countries. The initiative's goal was to create an internationally recognized logo to support the global human rights movement.In 2013, after the existence of the PRISM surveillance program was revealed, Ai said "Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To

me, it's abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals' privacy. This is an important moment for international society to reconsider and protect individual rights." In 2012, Ai interviewed a member of the 50 Cent Party, a group of "online commentators" covertly hired by the Chinese government to post "comments favourable towards party policies and to shape public opinion on internet message boards and forums". Keeping Ai's source anonymous, the transcript was published by the British magazine New Statesman on 17 October 2012, offering insights on the education, life, methods and tactics used by professional trolls serving pro-government interests. Ai designed the cover for 17 June 2013 issue of Time magazine. The cover story, by Hannah Beech, is "How China Sees the World".TIME Magazine called it "the most beautiful cover we've ever done in our history." In 2011, Ai served as co-director and curator of the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale,

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and co-curator of the exhibition Shanshui at The Museum of Art Lucerne.Also in 2011, Ai spoke at TED and was a guest lecturer at Oslo School of Architecture and Design. In 2013, Ai became a Reporters Without Borders ambassador.He also gave a hundred pictures to the NGO in order to release a Photo book and a digital album, both sold in order to fund freedom of information projects. In 2014–2015, Ai explored human rights and freedom of expression through an exhibition of his art exclusively created for Alcatraz, a notorious federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay. Ai's @Large exhibit raised questions and contradictions about human rights and the freedom of expression through his artwork at the island's layered legacy as a 19th-century military fortress. Awards and honors 2008 Chinese Contemporary Art Awards, Lifetime Achievement 2009 GQ Men of the Year 2009, Moral Courage (Germany); The Art Review Power 100, rank 43; International Architecture Awards, Anthenaeum Museum of

Architecture and Design, Chicago, USA 2010 In March 2010, Ai received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Faculty of Politics and Social Science, University of Ghent, Belgium. In September 2010, Ai received Das Glas der Vernunft (The Prism of Reason), Kassel Citizen Award, Kassel, Germany. Ai was ranked 13th in ArtReview's guide to the 100 most powerful figures in contemporary art: Power 100, 2010. In 2010, he was also awarded a Wallpaper Design Award for the Tsai Residence, which won Best New Private House. 2011 On 20 April 2011, Ai was appointed Visiting Professor of the Berlin University of the Arts. In October 2011, when ArtReview magazine named Ai number one in their annual Power 100 list, the decision was criticized by the Chinese authorities. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin responded, "China has many artists who have sufficient ability. We feel that a selection that is based purely on a political bias and perspective has violated the objectives of the magazine".

In December 2011, Ai was one of four runners-up in Time's Person of the Year award. Other awards included: Wall Street Journal Innovators Award (Art); Foreign Policy Top Global Thinkers of 2011, rank 18; The Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation Award for Courage; ArtReview Power 100, rank 1; Membership at the Academy of Arts, Berlin, Germany; The 2011 TIME 100; The Wallpaper* 150; Honorary Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; and Skowhegan Medal for Multidisciplinary Art, New York, NY, USA. 2012 Along with Saudi Arabian women's rights activist Manal al-Sharif and Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, Ai received the inaugural Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent of the Human Rights Foundation on 2 May 2012. Ai was also awarded an Honorary Degree from Pratt Institute, honorary fellowship from Royal Institute of British Architects, elected as Foreign Member of Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, and recipient of The International

Center of Photography Cornell Capa Award. Ai was ranked 3rd in ArtReview's Power 100. He was one of 12 Visionaries honoured by Conde Nast Traveler, along with Hillary Clinton, Kofi Annan, and Nelson Mandela. 2013 In April, Ai received the Appraisers Association Award for Excellence in the Arts.[ Fast Company has listed him among its 2013 list of 100 Most Creative People in Business.His guest-edit in the 18 October issue of The New Statesman has won an Amnesty Media Award in June 2013.[He has received the St. Moritz Art Masters Lifetime Achievement Award by Cartier in August. His documentary Ping'an Yueqing (2012) has won the "Spirit of Independence" award at the Beijing Independent Film Festival. He was ranked no.9 in ArtReview's Power 100. He received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, USA. 2015 On 21 May 2015, Ai, along with the folk singer Joan Baez, received Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award, in Berlin,

for showing exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights, through his life and work.The artist, who was at the time under surveillance and forbidden from leaving China, could not take part in the ceremony. His son Ai Lao accepted the prize on behalf of his father, called on the stage by Tate Modern director, Chris Dercon, who also spoke on behalf of the Chinese activist. Ai Weiwei wanted to pay tribute to those people in worse conditions than him, including civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang who faces eight years in prison, imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize-winning poet Liu Xiaobo, journalist Gao Yu, women's rights activist Su Changlan, activist Liu Ping and academic Ilham Tohti.

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Reza Khodadadi

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Reza Khodadadi lives and works in Tehran. Iranian contemporary artist, Academic, painter, sculptor, Urban artist & Muralist Ph.d in Art Reseauch and Professor of Art, was born in 1961, Ardabil, Iran. Faculty member of Tehran University of Art. Author of "Mural techniques" book. Author of eight books in the field of urban murals Entitled "Rules and Regulations Urban Beautification". Authored several articles and essays. Project study “ Murals of Tehran: musts and musts not” Teaching Experience Teaching experience in Universities and higher education institutions: Shahid Rajai University Islamic Azad University Sooreh Institute of Higher Education, (Sooreh University) Al-Zahra University School of Art Art University, since 1991 Records management and administrative responsibility Painting Art University Department Manager

(Head of Department of Painting, University of Art,Tehran ) Head of Department of Sculpture, University of Art, Tehran) Head of B.A Department of Painting, Sooreh Higher Education Institute (Sooreh Art University), Tehran. Head of M.A Department of Painting, Sooreh Higher Education Institute, (Sooreh Art University), Tehran. Member of Mural(Graffiti) and sculpture Council, Beautification Organization of Tehran Municipality. Member of technical committee,Organization of Tehran Beautification. Secretary of the “New Thought Segment” the Tehran Beautification Organization. Staff member of A National Olympic Academy Art Museum and Research Center. Member of National Olympic Academy Museum Research Center Staff, National Olympic Academy.

Member of Olympic Culture Commission Education. Art Council of National Olympic and Paralympic Academy. Member of jury and judge in several festivals and art competition Member of jury and judge, Art competition,National Olympic& Paralympic, Academy of Iran (two periods) Member of Iranian Association of Official Experts Expert of Association of Official in Art affairs Member of Iranian Association of Official Experts Honorary Member of Institute for Promotion of Contemporary Visual Art, Iran. Member of Scientific Committee and Jury of 2nd Iranian Lighting Design Conference and Prof essional Lighting Convention. Member of Scientific Committee and Jury of the 23rd International Exhibition of Home Furniture.(Tehran International Permanent Fairground). Member of Jury “The first National Award for Best Furniture ”(PFN AWARD 2014). Painting

The Works of Reza Khodadadi present various of aspects of assembling patterns and shapes alongside each other in mixed media. Continuity and colored material play an integral part in his art. His love for Rum′s poetic narrative to his paintings. in series 'Heyrani'(Perplexity) the viewers face an abstract work which allows them to make a literal 'Reading' of visual expression. The Perplexity series is Created with carefully drawn overlapping lines. These lines stand out in the background even though they are at times diluted, and their resemblance to straw and hay gives the painting the feel of a landscape. These landscapes seem distant from eastern landscapes yet during his creative process Khodadadi distances his work from these familiar scenes. The over-stacking and criss- crossing of lines confer on the painting a feeling of pattern. Straight lines begin to curl and give a feel of wind and dishevelment that can be fathomed as tantamount to perplexity or bewilderment.

The Contrasting lines play an integral part in the aesthetics of this painting while the colours are form the same group (unless used for background spacing) . Line segments are the simplest of visual ingredients, yet the artist, through detailed stacking and shading, has turned them into patterns. A sort of optical illusion is produced by this stacking that concentrates how they are viewed. This can clearly be seen in the works of Victor Vasarely (1906-1997) and Bridget Riley (b.1931) whose works stress the relationship of form and narrative. In fact Khodadadi endeavors to portray these accomplishments of modern painting on a few level in his work. The envisioning of either a waxing or waning process while looking at the Perplexity(Bewildered) series is an example of this artifice. The relief-type textures Khodadadi also adhere to the amassing of one form and its transformations. By

changing integral aspects of shapes, patterns and patina he creates diversity within the redundant rhythm of shapes. The painting of Khodadadi′s 'Perplexity' series focus on the flow of a landscape and its transformation to patterns and on how a chaotic atmosphere and immense and graduated space can be reproduced on canvas or vice versa.It is as if perspective appears and disappears through the brushing aside of the fields of straw. Simultaneously these are simply works of art with visual elements that under their own layers find connections to literary subjects. Exhibitions Several solo exhibitions in :Golestan Gallery, Barg Gallery, Haft Samar Gallery, Mah Art Gallery,Hoor Art Gallery and Boom art Gallery. Participation in the collective exhibition of more than 140 domestic and foreign

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